Fake piercings fatal for kids

What if you could fake a piercing? Then you could be cool when you wanted to be and straight-and-narrow when you needed to be.

You could take two of those tiny “Buckyball” type magnets sold in packs or found in toys or jewelry and put one on each side of your tongue. Or your lip. Or your nose. You’d be so “in” with none of the pain associated with a piercing, or the regret due to the hole that piercings leave when the skin heals, a hole that maybe you don’t want anymore.

Increasingly, kids, teens and young adults have been using these BB-sized magnets to fake piercings, often with life-threatening results. The magnets easily slip down the throat if they are dislodged. Stick your tongue out to show off your “piercing” and you could send them right down your esophagus.

It’s happened. Emergency room doctors say they are seeing more and more patients who have swallowed magnets. A fifth grader who tried to fake a tongue piercing with two BB sized magnets said that faking piercings is popular with kids her age. She ended up in the hospital.

Fortunately for her, the magnets stuck together in her throat. Doctors monitored them as they passed through her system. When they finally lodged in her appendix, she had surgery to remove them.

The Washington Post recounted her tale in a January article about the dangers associated with swallowing magnets. The BB-sized magnets have caused intestines to loop and stick together, creating fatal blockages. They have caused small holes in the stomach and the gut and have caused blood poisoning.

Since 2006, two major toy manufacturers have issued voluntary recalls of toys that included the magnets. Buckyballs’ manufacturer recalled packs of its magnets in 2010 for relabeling.

The relabeling didn’t help the mother of the fifth grader I described. That mother said the warnings on the Buckyballs plastic container were the same color as the container and the print was almost too small to read. Had she known how dangerous the magnets could be, she said she never would have bought them for her older children. After her youngest daughter’s experience, nobody in her house has magnets anymore.

It’s a good idea for parents to visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website frequently. That way they could stay up to date on dangers that can kill fun-seeking kids, teens and even some twenty-somethings.